He got off the step and started toward her, the hand that held the gun swaying, his free hand clenching and unclenching. She was pretty sure the first blow would be with a fist. He wasn’t going to shoot her before he hurt her. Grady had been right about that. She braced herself for the punch that was coming.

“No! Don’t touch her!” Maggie jumped from the sofa and lunged toward him. Just as he raised the gun there was the sound of something hitting the floor in the dining room.

Edmund smacked Maggie with his free hand and swung toward the sound just as a black plastic flower pot rolled across the floor.

“What the f…” he muttered.

From the kitchen doorway, Grady leaped forward and landed on Edmund’s back and slammed him, face-first, onto the floor. The gun Edmund had been holding slid on the hardwood almost to the front door.

“What the hell took you so long? And where’s Hal?” Vanessa rushed to help Maggie up.

“I’m all right, honey.” Maggie stood shakily. “I’m all right.”

“Pick up that gun, Ness,” Grady told her. “Put it on the table near the window.”

She picked it up between her thumb and forefinger, as if it had a life of its own, and placed it on the table.

“Grab the cuffs from my back pocket, would you?” Grady asked as he twisted Edmund’s hands behind his back.

She assisted Maggie onto the sofa, then pulled the cuffs from his pocket and handed them to Grady.

“Hal’s out back, probably still trying to catch his breath,” Grady told her as he cuffed her would-be assassin. “He ran the entire way, but he’s just not in shape. He was breathing so hard I was afraid you’d hear him before I could create a distraction, so I told him to wait outside. He’s called for backup but told them to hang back.”

“Hal’s outside?” Maggie started to rise, and Vanessa hurried to help her up. “Is he all right?”

“I think he’s better off than you are right now.” Vanessa tilted Maggie’s face to get a better look at her injury.

“What if he’s having a heart attack? Maybe we should call an ambulance…” Maggie ran to the back door.

“Tell him to let his backup know it’s time to move in,” Grady called after her.

“Get off me. I’m gonna sue you for excessive force…” Edmund yelled.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” Grady told him, then read him his rights. He turned to Vanessa. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Maggie got the worst of it. He was just winding up, though. You didn’t arrive any too soon, you know.”

“I know. I was paying attention.” Grady grabbed Edmund and pulled him to his feet. He held him by the back of the neck with one hand; with the other, he pulled his cell out of his shirt pocket. Vanessa smiled, and did the same.

“Hello,” she said into her phone.

“Hello,” he replied, then snapped his phone closed and said, “You’d have made a good cop, Ness. You followed instructions to the letter, you never lost your cool, you kept focused just like I told you.”

“I was scared to death,” she admitted as the first patrol car came screaming to a stop out front. “I had no cool. I thought I was going to pass out or throw up.”

“You did just fine, babe,” he said softly. “Just fine…”

She opened the front door for Gus and Sue and pointed to the man on the floor. “He’s all yours, Officers…”

Vanessa and Maggie sat across from each other at Hal’s conference table waiting to give their statements regarding the day’s events while Grady paced in the hallway talking on his cell.

“Vanessa, I don’t know how to thank you for saving my life this morning,” Maggie said. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Do you believe he would have killed you?” Vanessa asked.

Maggie nodded. “There’s no question in my mind. Several times, I thought he was going to pull that trigger…” She shivered at the memory. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I will never forget that you put yourself in danger to save me.”

“Maggie, you’re my mother.” Vanessa sighed. “Whatever else has happened, whatever issues we have, the fact remains that you’re my mother, and I could not let him kill you in my place.”

Tears rolled down Maggie’s cheeks. “Look, I know I screwed up as a mother. There are so many things I did back then that I’d never do now. I never meant to hurt you or Beck, Vanessa. I did love you-I still love you both-but I screwed up big-time. Every good relationship I ever had, I screwed up.”

“Yes, you did.” Vanessa faced her and met her eyes without blinking. “You screwed up your life, and you screwed up both of ours. But here’s the thing: in screwing up, you gave us both what turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to either of us. You sent us to Hal. He saved us-both of us-so for that I have to thank you. It makes up for everything you didn’t do.”

Maggie covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, Vanessa. I know I was a poor excuse for a mother.”

“A piss-poor excuse, when you get right down to it. But maybe instead of beating your breast and crying about everything you did that hurt us…”

Maggie’s head shot up.

“Yes. Hurt, Maggie.” Vanessa took a deep breath. There were things she’d waited a lifetime to say. Now might be her only chance. “From the time I was seven years old until I was about fifteen, I was afraid all the time. Did you know that?”

“Afraid of what, honey?”

“Afraid that the men who came home with you at night would come back during the day when I was there alone. I hated the school day to end, because all the way walking home, I’d be getting more and more scared.” Even now, years later, Vanessa could feel that cold finger of fear on the back of her neck. “What if someone was there when I got home? What would I do? What would I do if you were out at night and one of them came looking for you? What would they do to me?”

“Oh, baby, I’d never have let anyone hurt you. I’d have died before I’d let anyone touch you,” Maggie wept.

“Good to know now, but it would have been even better to hear when I was a child.”

“Dear God, I’m sorry. Look, I know I was a mess back then. I did so much wrong when I was too young to know better. I made a million bad choices and few good ones. I lost the best man I ever knew-the only man I really loved-because I was too weak and too scared to stand up to my father. You can’t imagine what it was like for me back then, Vanessa.” Maggie patted her eyes with a tissue she’d taken from her purse. “I was bullied and forced into marrying someone I didn’t love. My entire life went wrong from that one wrong turn.”

“This isn’t all about you, Maggie. A simple I-screwed-up-my-life-and-I-screwed-up-yours-too-and-I’m-sincerely-sorry is probably all that’s necessary at this point. The rest of it-the explanations, the attempts to excuse yourself that you’ve been making all these years-they don’t matter so much anymore to anyone except you. I can’t help you to clear your conscience but I can give you some of the best advice you’ll ever get.” Vanessa scanned the table and found a pen and a sheet of paper. She wrote something and handed it to Maggie. “This is the therapist who helped me. Maybe she can give you a referral to someone in North Dakota that you could make an appointment with.”

Maggie frowned.

“You have issues that you’ve been dragging around for years, Maggie. You haven’t been able to resolve them on your own, so maybe someone else can help you. It might be worth a try.” Vanessa shrugged. “Of course, it’s up to you.”

Maggie studied the paper for a moment.

“You’re right, of course.” Maggie folded the paper and tucked it into her bag. “Thank you.”

“Ladies, if you’re ready to give your statements”-Hal appeared in the doorway-“Sue is ready to take them. Maggie, come on into the office across the hall, and we’ll get started with you first.”

“All right.” Maggie stood and walked to the door. She turned back to her daughter and said, “Thank you, Ness. For everything.”